audience. i'm pretty sure that just about everyone else who is sitting here today, themselves either through choice or through fate, are also human rights leaders, courageous people who have made a difference in their native lands, some of whom hope to get back some day. in the meantime, american is a much more amazing and stronger place i virtue of your presence here. we are so grateful for each and every one of you. and for those of you who have the time, and about three minutes we will show the videos of testimony of some of those great individuals. but for now, without a gavel, we thank you all for coming, and we call this meeting to an end. thank you. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> tue, alejandra mayorkas and the director of the counterterrorism center testified. watch live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span now. in studio with james lindsay who goes by jim senior vice president at the council on fortune relations and hottest of the president's in-box podcast. guest: thank you for having me. host: can you tell me about your podcast? guest: it is a weekly interview show that has me sit with experts for about 30 minutes

talking about the foreign policy challenges facing the united states and will end up on the president's desk, hence the title of the show. the goal is help people make sense of very complicated international scenes. our emphasis is on information analysis as opposed to advocacy. we are interested equipping people to make sense with what they see in the news. host: there's so much going on in the news. how do you decide which topics to dig two? guest: that is an excellent question and there are sort of two kinds of shows we do. some are in response to what is happening in the news. so, recently we have done two episodes on the israel-hamas worry. we did a episode on the battle over the house of reference and

speaker. so some are reacting to events. other shows we are looking at issues that are happening that are important that will be consequential but may not be breaking through because they are sort of slowly building. we have done shows on the build-up of china's nuclear forces. we have episodes looking at climate change and how it is playing out in different parts of the world and fueling conflict. we looked at the advent of artificial intelligence and what was meaning for america's elections where there is a potential to do things like have targeted appeals to people from either political party or foreign hackersment jew mentioned your episodes on the israel-hamas conflict. why did hamas attack knowing it with likely result in such a master response from israel? guest: we don't have good

insight into the motivation of hamas. a lot of speculation has been put out there. architects that hamas did this to disrupt the ongoing aprocedure maintenance between israel and saudi arabia that. could be a side benefit but it is hard to be seen as a drives force because as best we knew the planning for the attack had been under way before the conversations between the israelis and saudis and picked up steam. the fact that the attack was on the 50th anniversary of the october war and yum kapur war and ramadan war suggests that it was done in essence to be symbolic, to put down a marker of hamas's resistance. host: what capabilities does hamas have compared to israel

with technology, funding? guest: in terms of technology israel has a decided advantage but the kind of fighting we are talking about now is not in which technology can be decisive. our understanding is that israel has now moved into gaza and that we are seeing urban fighting, that is the most difficult, complicated, deadly kind of fighting that militaries can engage in which many of the advantages of technology are negated by for example you can't get signals bass they are blocked by buildings. so close quarter fighting can negate a lot of technological advances. host: that was not the case before the attack and hamas's attack was from land, sea, air and they had been planning a long time. why was it such a surprise to israel and why did intelligence

agencies miss it? guest: thank is a question a lot of israelis are wondering and it is against a back drop of a country that experienced attacks. it is on the 50th years of the surprise egyptian attack of 1973. the most likely explanation for why the israelis were caught flat-footed on this is they didn't believe and attack of this magnitude was possible. you look at intelligence failures historically, hindsight is 20-20. you can always see there were plenty of signals that people don't assemble the bits and pieces, connect the dots. one reason they don't is in the case of 9/11 and the frames phrase is lack of imagination and i think the fact is israelis

didn't think hamas would launch an attack like this because it would bring about a catastrophic retaliation, which we are seeing. host: another area that the intelligence doesn't seem to be clear is the role of iran. why is the u.s. still unable to figure out or publicly acknowledge whether iran was involved? guest: that is an interesting question on it depends on what you mean by involved. the united states government understands and has been clear that the iranians are involved in a general sense. the iranians have sponsored terrorist groups throughout the region. they have gotten weapons to handle mass, provided guidance, news reports of some hamas trainers fighting and training in iran. i think the question people are focused on now in this specific instance is what extent did iran have a direct planning role.

did the iranians plan the attack? did they provide intelligence? or is it merely they provided general support to handle mass and were themselves surprised? it is more complicated when you realize it may be the case some people in tehran in may have been in the dark and others might have known what is going on. host: on tuesday's white house press briefing. john kirby responded to a he request iran's -- question about the iran knowledge. >> the assessment that iran did not directly play a role in this attack. >> i never said that iran did not play a role. what we said and there's been no change, that iran is certainly

complicit here. without them there is to hamas or less blah or groups firing rockets at our troops in syria. we recognize iran is monitoring these and in some case encouraging some of these attacks, no question about it. >> [inaudible]? >> we still haven't seen any direct specific intelligence that says they were waiting or participating or directing the attacks of october 7. but, as i said broadly complicit to question and i'm sure our israeli counterparts will in due time take a harder look at the intelligence picture but i will let them speak to that. >> last week no one with confirm on the record that [inaudible]

were coming from iranian top-secret but it was said the u.s. holds them responsible. is the u.s. taking the signal that iran is trying to widen the war? >> you see they are backing these groups, no question. we have sent a strong signal of deterrence. there's no indication right now that any other nation, state or actor is preparing or imminently to escalate there -- this conflict but i want to be clear nobody is turning a blind eye to iran's complicity. their support of ma lisch groups -- militia groups we have addressed it through additional sanction and military force and we will do what we have to protect ourselves and troops. nobody is turning away from that threat or their support.

host: we have iran has warn hezbollah could destroy tel aviv power for power. is there a possibility of a secretary front with hezbollah attacking israel from the north? guest: very much so. i would imagine israel military and government are deeply worried about that. hezbollah as a group separate from hamas has closer ties to iran. it is based in southern lebanon. the israelis in the past fought wars with less blah. they have been quite bloody and costly for both sides. the great concern that the israelis have is if a second front is opened up it will put

greater pressure on the israeli military. it is also the fear hezbollah might overwhelm some of israel's missile defenses. hezbollah is believed to have as many as 150,000 missiles and rockets. they appear to be more sophisticated than those that hamas had in using in the attack october 7 and using sense then. so there are concerns like the israeli system would be overwhelmed and for the israelis there's great concern about a third front. what happens if you have unrest in the west bank where there have been growing conflicts, a lot of settler and palestinian violence and then what happens within israel in terms of the citizens of israel and what they do.

host: what you are talking about is the potential spreading of this not just into different parts of israel and palestinian territories but in the region. can you lay out what other countries in the region are saying about their potential involvement or desire to stay out of it? guest: the nightmare scenario is if the war spreads and you get interstate war. the big question is will we see a war with iran. that gets back to the complicity question which is why the discussion of what level of complicity the iranians have is so great is why if you get a second front from hezbollah because of their close ties to tehran that increases the chance of military strikes not necessarily by israel but by the united states. we have already seen the biden administration put american forces in middle east on high

alertment we have two air force carrier groups going, one u.s. tpaefrl ship has shot down missiles aimed at israel. we also in u.s. strikes in sir why against iranian proxies that have attacked american troops. so this is a very dangerous situation that could escalate and it would skate in a way involving not just issues with the united states but iran fighting in syria, lebanon and potentially jordan and part of the focus of the biden administration is to try to prevent that from happening. host: let's hear from some callers john in sedalia, missouri. caller: i want to bring up a few things. it seems like we forget so much about politics but it a very short period of time. the prime minister had stated over and over how democratic his

society is there in the middle east. he says he is the only democratic society there. back in july there were so many protests and we taught they were just, well, stated, they were just people from school, they were rebels so to speak, but the majority of people that protested in july were ex-military, professional people that were stated -- and there shouldn't be building on the west bank and should be -- host: jim, can you talk about the role of internal israeli politics and what has been happening? guest: israel is deeply divided society, not much different than the united states. prime minister netanyahu commands a narrow majority in

the knesset. there are many israelis who dislike the prime minister. so, the caller is referring to the protests over the summer about a judicial reform bill which the prime minister and his allies argued would improve the judicial system in israel and the critics said was attacking one of the fundamental pillars of democracy in israel and it was quite controversial. i think that whole conversation has been put to the side because the issue front and center is the war against hamas and how that plays out. again the potential for that war to spread. host: if you have questions for jim or comments call us our republican line is 202-748-8001. democrats on 202-748-8000. independents at 202-748-8002. let's hear from bob in illinois

on the democratic line. caller: hello, sir. what i would like to know i have three real quick points. in israel, when they had that contest they even said their reservists would not get involved with helping netanyahu become over the court and they had that protest, i think that they started to plan to talk and for them to attack then. then a heard a woman say help her during when gaza attacked -- we the palestinians attacked israel and said i can't help you because go for yourself.

they allowed them maybe to hurt many people to have a reason to eliminate hamas, which is terrible. hamas is terrible. and my third point real quick, i hate to see these people die. it is so sad. you can hold me or i can get off and listen to your response. host: let's allow jim to respond particularly to whether hamas used the protests in israel as an opening to plan there. you addressed that a bit earlier but if you want to touch on it again. and the caller asking whether there was any incentive by the israeli government to allow the attack two happen to take action in gaza that they maybe already planned to do. guest: i can't speak to all the points the caller raised. what i would say there is no evidence or good reason to

believe that the israeli government wanted this attack given the consequences of t., first point. seconds, the caller is quite right there were robust protests that the previous caller in the summer and spring about the judicial reform bill which in many ways paralyzed israeli politics and you had reservists saying they would not be called up for duty because they were protesting the judicial reform bill. i don't think any of that played into hamas's calculations. none of us has transparency on the thinking of hamas leadership. but given the amount of time that went into planning the operation, the planning began long before the judicial protests or strikes by some reservists. so i wouldn't want to make that connection.

host: let's hear from james in manfield center, connecticut, on our independent line. caller: hello. i'm calling just as a concerned person a half world away from israel and i can't imagine what the israelis are going through after this horrible thing happened to them. i'm hoping our president, when he consulted with netanyahu, brought something up, and that is be careful about the response. and i'm hoping that maybe he suggests special forces instead of a grand invasion. if things go wrong here and it turns into something like a general know side that is going to turn into a battle cry for future enemy states. so, i think wisdom should

prevail over the who is right and who is wrong thing and strategy. guest: he brings up a point of what people are seeing is sad and the costs are a paid by people who have no say over what is happening. i think the biden administration has signalled to the netanyahu government perhaps it should slow down and not react out of white hot anger and think of where do they want to be down the road. i think it is important to keep in mind that israel has a right like any country under international law it retaliate when it is attacked. i will also note that israel face as major challenge in that hamas is a terrorist

organization co-locates among civilians essentially using them as human shields making it differ to go after or to degrade hamas's infrastructure without killing innocent people. but i do think the administration is suggests that if israel loses state of proportionality they are going to run into the trouble of decreasing support elsewhere. and for everyone there is the issue of what is going to come next. israelis, asness it does not want to reoccupy gaza. they left in 2005 because of the challenges of trying to hold on to gaza. but if you leave gaza totally ungoverned, bad things are going to happen. the united states discovered that in afghanistan, in iraq and in libya. so, i think for the biden administration and also other governments in the region, not

just the israelis they are trying to think of what comes next, who is going to govern gaza? will that government have legitimacy? can it function? can it deliver services for the people of gaza? those are very difficult complicated questions. host: let's hear from peter in new york on the republican line. caller: mr. lindsay, we haven't really discussed america's foreign policy regarding this situation in the middle east. isaac newton's law of reaction is an equal and opposite reactionment during the trump administration they put on these strong sanctions on iran. every expert that i heard all say the same thing. that iran is financing hezbollah, hamas, the houthis

and it is their money that is responsible for training and equipping all of those terrorists. now, during the trump administration they put these heavy sanctions on and the iranians basically were almost bankrupt. they only had like $6 biological in assets and oil sales were down to 400,000 barrels a day. under the biden administration at the relaxed the sanctions didn't eliminate them but were not enforcing them and today iran is producing 3 million barrels of oil a day and they have $80 billion in assets plus the $6 billion they were going to release because -- host: what was your question for jim specifically? caller: the question is, the biden administration helped to precipitate this action that is happening by hamas because we allowed iran to become

emboldened with money -- host: jim, let's take that point specifically. guest: i think it is an unfair characterization as just laid out. i would make the following points. the various groups that the caller spoke about, houthis, et cetera they have their own grievances and aspirations. they were not just created by the iranians. very important point. seconds, even during the trump administration when we had tis policy of maximum pressure on iran those groups all behaved badly so to speak in a number of areas. i think that the reality is that hamas would have been capable of carrying out its attacks on

israel regardless of how many barrels of oil the iranians would be able to produce. host: i want to switch gears it talk about the relations between the united states and russia which have been deteriorated for decades. earlier this year russia said it was at an all time low. i wonder if you think in that relationship is it possible for the two accountants to shift from adversarial relations to more of a constructive rivalry as some have called for, and what would that shift look like? guest: it would be healthy if we could have a constructive rivalry or cooperative rivalry but i don't think that is in the cards soon. because we have the war in ukraine. the russians invaded in ukraine, violated international law. they continue to wage war t the ukrainians. president putin, whatever miss

strategic calculation was, it backfired. rather than dividing the west it united the west. it led sweden and finland to join nato. it is very hard looking a the that situation to figure out how you can have better relations with russia when they insist on their aggression against ukraine. host: so, it was like we have been so absorbed with what is happening with israel and hamas tanks has been diverted from ukraine. what is the latest on the ground in? guest: the ukrainian counteroffensive continues. the progress is very slow. it comes at a very lie cost. we are essentially at what people refer to as the fighting season which is a misnomer because fighting will continue. but as it gets colder, snow falls it is hard to carry out major operations.

the reason the ukrainian counteroffensive hasn't achieved what people hoped for is because the russians have dug in and in military warfare the defense inherently has advantages because they can build fortifications and make it hard to reclaim land. the big question is, what does this set up for next year? and there is a military part of the question and a political part of the question. the military part would be, will ukraine have suffer military supplies and gain a suffer foot hoepld that perhaps next spring or summer it can punch through the russian line. the political question is will with respect support for ukraine continue? will ukraine get those supplies it needs to fight, or will the united states or other countries either decrease the amount of support they give to ukraine or

halt it all together. as you know well, kimberly, this is a big issue not far from here in the united states capitol as democrats appear republicans talk about whether and to what extent the united states should provide military materiel to the ukraine. host: i feel like we are jumping around topics but i gather this is appropriate given the nature of your podcast. china, last week the pentagon released a new report showing china may be accelerating its efforts to develop a nuclear arsenal. what do we know about their current nuclear capabilities guest: two. were smaller than the russian or united states but they are increasing it quickly. historically they made a decision in the 1960's they were not going to try to match the

united states or the soviet union in building nuclear weapons. where the united states and soviet union had tens of thousands of warheads the chinese was content with 200 or so. it was minimum deterrence. the notion was i just need enough to retaliate. in recent years they have made a decision that they want to have more nuclear weapons. it is unclear what they are hoping to gain by that. it raises big questions about the potential interplay of the various nuclear arsenals. in the 1960's and 1970's a time of great superpower tensions, it was easier to plot things with two countries. now you are talking about the united states, you are talking russia, china, india, pakistan,

potentially a country like iran could join. you have the issue of north korea. so all of a sudden from a military planning point it is more complicated because you have to worry about others ganging up on you want a big thing to pay attention to with u.s. china relations if the president of china meets in san francisco with president biden you mentioned it would be nice to have a constructive rivalry with russia. i think it is more important to have a constructive rivalry with the chinese. the biden administration has been seeking to try to put so-called guard rails on the u.s.-china competition which is very real. not that we have had were success building those guard rails but obviously even given that they are the two largest

economies it is that you have two major super powers finding a way to live with each other that is acceptable to both sides is important. host: we will get a few more calls. on tan in albany, new york on the end line. caller: good morning. two things. with regard to the hamas and -- i just don't know how they ever hope to get any advantage by slaughtering people and taking them hostage. if there is no rationale, how can you negotiate with people like that? and as far as iran goes, once that nuclear genie is out of the bottle, i fear for the world because to me the only way to stop iran you have to tell them you are going to cease and desist or we will take out your

first oil refinery and if you keep going we will take the second one and you will have no economy because if they get a nuclear weapon they have promised to annihilate israel off the map. host: two points. what possible scenario hamas thought they could use this attack for leverage and what hope there may be remaining for those hostages, then the nuclear risk from iran? guest: again, we don't have a lot of clarity of the thinking of hamas leadership, what we thought they were going to accomplish. it is quite possible they have achieved sort of a catastrophic success if i can describe it because of what is happening in response. partly for hamas is a matter of showing its opposition to israel. its hatred of israel as an organization despite talk of

having watered down its charter and israel's right to exist. i also think there's an element of the hamas leadership of rally ing palestinians to their cause and positioning themselves as the only group willing to stand up to israel. there was some public opinion work done in gaza before october 7 by happenstance that showed that hamas was not terribly popular with most people in gaza because they wanted their lives improved and didn't see hamas doing that. but now that you have the reaction of the israelis one of the consequences is likely to be a rallying in the palestinian community behind hamas. host: and it has also called changes in the political dynamics and public support in the united states. guest: here and around the world. this is very difficult situation. i go back to the point israel has a right to retaliate, but

israel has to recognize that people watch tv and have their opinions influenced. and it is not even in the sense that the attack of israel is already done and those pictures are not being played over but we are seeing live coverage from gaza. host: what about the point of the nuclear risk from iran? guest: i think that the nuclear risk in iran is great and i think policy makers in the united states and elsewhere worry about it greatly. they worry about it less in terms of appear immediate iranian attack on israel. keep in mind, israel also has nuclear weapons and could retaliate which is again why nuclear weapons aren't used because of basically mutually assured destruction.

a more immediate concern is, if iran deploys a nuclear weapon there's going to be increased pressure in the region for other countries to get nuclear weapons. here we are talking about assault and battery retain -- saudi arabia, turkey and potentially egypt. now, all of those companies would have limitations in building a weapon but it is possible they could buy nuclear weapons from other countries. there is talk of pakistan provided saudi arabia with nuclear weapons. as you have more countries with nuclear weapons, amidst very real geopolitical rivalry, you then run into the concern you would get a nuclear attack growing out of conventional conflict. host: let's try to get one more question, mike in ohio on the democratic line. caller: yes, that is lick

skillet, ohio. host: hi. host: i think our foreign policy and tax cuts for the rich have brought us this $32 trillion deficit. there was a twice decorated marine general who wrote a book called war is a racquet and eisen sure warned us about the military industrial complex. so, i have an idea for you. what do you think about a peace department with a pentagon budget and blackwater, i understand that he has the sniper skills and air drill -- >> let's take the first point because we are running low. the idea of a peace department or even if you could comment on

the role of the military and defense contractors in this. guest: the caller raises a very good point we historianing look back at the last 30 years and where we thought we were in 1990 to where we ended up in 2023 they are going to talk about a squandering of an opportunity because after the fall of the berlin wall the collapse of the soviet union we had great hopes of international politics on a different footing. and i think part but not the only part of the story is going to be a harsh judgment about america's decision to invade iraq and consequences and cost of that. i think that is a very real point. i think beyond that if you are talking about a peace department we have one. it is called the state department. here i think the caller is quite right. we don't invest in the state

department, in diplomacy, the way we do in the military. it is not just me saying this. this is what a lot of senior military officers. general james mattis was fond of saying if you are not willing to invest in diplomats then you better give me more money for ammo and i think the united states has short-changed its diplomatic corps. that includes not just things like not having enough fortune service officers or enough offices overseas. it has to do with things like aid. we get back to this talk of how we have to stand up to china. well, china has been going around the world recruiting friends, investing money in countries around the world. we haven't been doing the same. so, we can't be surprised when other countries look at us and

say what have you done for us, look what the chinese are doing for us. with that sense there is a competition. host: the chinese just celebrated the anniversary celebrating with countries all over the world. we will have to leave it there, jim lindsay hopgs of the president's in-box podcast, senior vice president >> healthe this. americans can see democracy at work. a republic thrives. c-span. unfiltered, unbiased. get the opinion that matters the most. this is what democracy looks like.